On Translating M. Seppola Simonsen

“North is not final,” “In another time,” and “the knife soars soundless” are translations from Hjerteskog/Syđänmettä (Heart of the Forest/Syđänmettä), M. Seppola Simonsen’s award-winning debut poetry collection. The poems are written in a combination of Norwegian and Kven—an endangered minority language spoken by the Kven people in Northern Norway. In Norway, Hjerteskog/Syđänmettä has been lauded as an important contribution to Kven literature, and to Kven representation in the broader literary landscape.

For Hjerteskog/Syđänmettä, Seppola Simonsen received the prestigious Tarjei Vesaas Prize and the Havmann Prize. The jury for the Tarjei Vesaas Prize praised Seppola Simonsen’s “exceptional images” and ability to render the complexity of nature and the place humans occupy within it.

The Kven people are a Finnic ethnic minority whose language is spoken by fewer than 10,000 people—by some estimates, as few as 1,500 people. A 2013 report published by the European Union listed Kven as one of the most endangered languages in Europe, and at risk of extinction.

I came across M. Seppola Simonsen’s work during a visit to Oslo, where I grew up. Whenever I’m in Norway, my favorite thing to do is to go to bookstores and libraries to browse the new selection of Norwegian literature. Hjerteskog made it home with me one day. I had never read anything quite like it before. I wanted my friends—most of whom are not Norwegian—to read it. I wanted everyone to read it.